I dream of being as ordinary as my grandparents.
Flawed and mundane lives are the most common type, but should fill you with pride.
I avoid walking down the street that my grandparents used to live on. Part of it is my dismay at the decline of the street itself: the shop on the corner had to close some years ago, a great deal of the houses are overcrowded and run down, front gardens have been replaced with parked cars and the pavements are more broken than they ever were. But, that is not the core reason I refuse to walk down the street. The truth is that, in some confused and childlike way, I believe that if I do not pass my grandparents’ former home and see strangers living in it, the memory of our family’s life within its walls, remains a present reality.
My father’s parents lived a life that could be easily romanticised if made into a modern film. Teenagers who met on an RAF base, where my great-grandfather George was stationed as Flight Lieutenant. Bill, my grandfather, was an awkward but fresh-faced 18-year-old prospective RAF policeman, who one day spotted George’s daughter Gloria, walking with a friend. To many they seemed to be a whirlwind kid romance, marrying just a few months later - although, my eldest aunt’s arrival six months post-wedding may indicate some necessity of their union. They created and then raised seven children to adulthood, experiencing the loss of one of their daughters at age 20, and a baby, named George, who was born sleeping. My grandfather’s work took him across the world, Gloria raising his children on bases in Wales, Yorkshire, Germany, and as far afield as Singapore. My dad said that some of his most joyous childhood memories were spent running around the base with the hot Singaporean rain drenching him. In many ways, Bill and Gloria lived a picture perfect example of a life in the 20th century, facing adversity with resilience, combatting grief with love for their family, and acting as a central point for their children, grandchildren and eventual great-grandchildren. My childhood birthdays’ tasted like my grandmother’s homemade chocolate cake, the recipe for which remains lost to history. Cinemas are far less exciting without my Grandad grumbling through our regular visits to them together, and the slightly melted chocolate raisins that he would ‘smuggle’ in his jacket - bought from that corner shop that I can no longer visit. Their marriage is responsible for my existence, their perseverance is the backbone of my familial identity, and their love fuels my fear of seeing that house empty.
However, no matter how magical the memory of my grandparents is to me, the truth is that Bill and Gloria never set out in their life to create a granddaughter who would write about them in this way. Indeed, if I put myself in the shoes of a teenage boy; away from home for the first time, spotting a pretty girl in a nurse’s uniform; how could I ever expect that he would have designs to create a family so large and difficult to provide for and manage? If I further think about how I would’ve been, as young girl raised in the military, the daughter of a woman who was born out of wedlock in the 1910s - would I look over to that sweet-faced young man and think, “yes, my life will be centred around creating a family for you”. The reality is, probably not. Modernity has stripped me of the carefree and risk-taking attitudes that my grandparents possessed in their youth. Online discussions about the perfect age for fertility, the moral size and expense of a family, the correct ways to raise your children; all have morphed into an enormous, anxiety-inducing circle of judgment, and the truth is that you will never achieve its approval.
Such fears about getting life wrong, even though the consequences for missteps in family planning are as minimal as they ever have been in the history of our country, are mounting on the young with enormous force. Partner this with an ability to spend hours a day on your phone, witnessing the polished lives of the rich and famous, or the daring and carefree, and you have a recipe for disillusionment. Purpose comes with responsibility for someone or something, free time, though wonderfully indulgent, can leave the young and energetic, restless - searching for the meaning behind their life and pondering what their legacy will be without ever taking the steps to build it.
Ordinary people are as mythical, profound and impactful as the extraordinary. My grandparents, people with as many flaws and shortcomings as anyone else, will live for generations more if I have my way. Whilst I could dwell on everything from the position of a 2024 woman, someone who could easily point out the irrationality of having so many children with so little money, of choosing to spend your life with someone you barely knew, and I could psycho-analyse the decisions of people who can not longer speak up for themselves - instead I thank god and I thank them for being human enough to keep living as they saw fit.
I may never walk down that street again, or confront the finality of losing them during my own teenage years. What I will do is continue to play their romantic film in my head, and use it to inspire me to live with conviction, no matter how unaesthetic, or ordinary the outcome of those convictions may be.